The One

We have always supported our local milkman so we decide to get our additional Christmas supplies from him but when I look at their website, all the cream is out of stock. That’s not very organised of them and not very good for his Christmas tip either.

I have lunch with my brother at Peacock which is quite good despite us having to drive there.

While L’s having yet another Christmas lunch although this appears to be ‘the one’ and not just another fuddle. L is impressed although her boss apparently isn’t. From her description it sounds a lot better than my meal on Friday.

Daughter is on her way over for a week or so. So she’ll be able to join us at a few parkruns.

After work I head off to the gym for a quick 15k wattbike then it’s home to kick off one of the festive traditions and make some Stilton pate.

(Thursday 22^nd December)

Traffic Hell Monday

L has a boozy Christmas lunch while I’m sat in traffic hell trying to get to Sainsbury’s to do the Christmas shop. Once I get there it is to find the supermarket itself blissfully quiet, I assume because everyone is in their cars. The £140 bill, due to far too much alcohol and dead animal parts, is lightened by the £25 in loose change from the piggy bank and £45 in Nectar points that I put towards it. Not bad.

After work I go to John Carroll for a swim where I get both lanes to myself and do 50 lengths. L is there too and I take her incredibly heavy kit bag off her so that she can run home. 

(Monday 21^st December)

Another Mention Of Christmas And It's Still Only Mid November.

My training regime hasn’t been good recently. No training at all from Friday to Monday and only a swim on Tuesday. So it’s a relief to be on the bike today. Particularly as an unannounced closure to Coventry Lane causes chaos. Glad I’m not sat in that in the car.

Its perfect conditions for cycling. Slightly cold but dry and sunny.

It’s around this time of year that L starts requesting venison for Christmas lunch on the basis that one less of the brutes on Wollaton Park has got to be a good thing and one less for MD to bark at.

Although there is an alternative offer on the table from L’s boss in the shape of a couple of freshly shot pheasants. Apparently he's even offered to have his stable girl pluck them for us. 

I’m impressed. More so by the fact that he has a stable girl than by the pheasant offer. How cool. Maybe we should get one?

Although perhaps to have a stable girl one needs a stable. We do have a shed, although that's not quite got the same ring to it.

(Wednesday 13^th November)

Deer Psychology

We have the plumber in this morning, fitting new bath taps and new trim. He's also on hand to offer his views to L on deer psychology... the ones on Wollaton Park are all psychos, but we already knew that. MD knows that and has been trying to out-psycho them for the last few years.

All of which has made one difficult decision easy, we're having venison for Christmas lunch this year. We know the one we want, his card is marked. MD and I will sort it, in the dead of night.

I’m not sure tennis is going to happen but my opponent is convinced that the rain will cease at 6pm. I'm not so sure...

BBC forecast says

"The more persistent rain will clear north by this afternoon, a few brighter intervals possible but with further heavy, slow-moving, thundery downpours likely.

Further rain across the region this evening and overnight, perhaps heavy and thundery at times."

There are no squash courts free, so we don't have that as a backup option. If it is on, I can see I’m going to be busy with the court squeegee.

They look at us oddly, again, when we book in but we do actually get a full match in with only a brief shower. We even get a few extra games in as we wait for L to finish her ‘pump’.

Then it’s a pint in a rather crowded White Hart where the pool match seems to have pulled a bigger crowd than Cristiano Ronaldo's one man show against the Czech Republic.

(Thursday 21st June)